


Lineage

by ohgodmyeyes



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Childhood, Darth Vader Redemption, Domestic, Family, Gen, Love, One Shot, Parenthood, Reader-Insert, Redemption, Revelations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26151091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohgodmyeyes/pseuds/ohgodmyeyes
Summary: A one-shot which takes place following the events ofEventide.(*Reading thiscompletelyspoils the preceding story.*)
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker/Reader, Darth Vader/Reader, Reader & OC
Comments: 26
Kudos: 120





	Lineage

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t expect you to read this, particularly if you didn’t read ‘Eventide’. One kind and wonderful person asked for something akin to it, though, and since it happened to be going around in my head, too... well, here it is. 
> 
> Again, this spoils literally everything about the larger story; on top of that, you’ll likely be lost if you didn’t read it.

“Mummy, who is Darth Vader?”

You had been cooking when she asked; the question nearly made you drop your spoon into the pot. You knew it would come someday; however, you never thought it would come quite so soon— your daughter was barely six years old. 

“Why do you ask, sweetheart?” 

“The children in the village sing rhymes about him.”

“...Rhymes? What sorts of rhymes?”

“Scary ones. They say if you don’t listen to your parents, he comes out from under your bed at night and slices you apart.”

 _Oh no._ “I’m going to turn this down,” you said of the food you’d been simmering, “and then we can sit and talk about it. Would that be alright?”

“Okay,” she answered, and wandered over to the far side of the room; pulled herself up onto a chair beside the table at which the two of you typically sat and ate your meals. You did as you said you were going to do; turned down the heat on your little gas-powered element, and moved to join her.

Again, you’d known since she was born that this day would come. Your little girl knew about her father, of course, but she didn’t know him by the name the Emperor had given him— she knew him simply as ‘Anakin’; a man you’d loved very much, and who had died before she was born. You’d always planned on telling her the rest of his story; however, you had been hoping to be able to wait a little bit longer to do it: The last thing you wanted was for her to become someone’s target due to her parentage. Besides that, you had wanted her to be old enough to understand the complexities of her father’s mistakes, identity, and ultimate redemption prior to revealing to her the entirety of the truth. 

You supposed that choice had been taken away from you, now. You couldn’t even be upset with the children who had taught her the rhyme; it made sense that they would view Anakin as a monster or a boogeyman, their parents likely not having known anything about him except for the worst of what he’d done. Nobody, after all, knew much about him outside of the terrible role he’d been tricked into playing. Your own connection to him was a secret; unknown by just about everyone except for you and his son, Luke. It was safer that way.

Your daughter, however, deserved for you to tell her the truth— if she was old enough to ask after Vader, then she was old enough to know that he and her father were one in the same.

“Do you remember,” you asked as you sat down, “what I told you about how things were when I was little, like you?”

“You mean about the Empire?”

“That’s right.”

“You said they were mean to everyone,” she said succinctly, and you appreciated the simplicity of her evaluation.

“Yes— and they took things that didn’t belong to them; even whole planets. They wanted to control _everybody.”_ You’d made little effort to hide your disdain for the old government from your daughter— you had never appreciated Imperial rule.

She looked up at you and tilted her head. “Was Darth Vader one of them?”

You nodded. “He commanded them— all of them. An order from him was as good as an order from the Emperor.”

Her eyes widened at that. “He was as bad as the _Emperor?”_

With an inadvertent sigh, you told her, “No... no, not exactly.” All of a sudden, explaining this felt as though it were exceedingly difficult... even though it shouldn’t have been; not really. “‘Darth Vader’ was only a name,” you settled on, after some consideration. 

“So that means he wasn’t real?”

“He was very real,” you corrected her, “but by the time he died, he’d realized that the things he’d done were wrong. He was sorry for the people he’d hurt.”

“The other children told me he was... well, more like a droid than a person. Is _that_ true?”

“No,” you said decidedly. “He was most definitely a person.” That was easier to answer, at least. 

She, however, seemed skeptical. “How do _you_ know?” she asked. It was a very good question.

Smiling thinly, you confessed, “I knew him— not for long, but long enough to know he wasn’t proud of the things he’d done for the Empire.” She looked at you for a long moment after that, as if she were trying to decide whether she believed you, or whether she thought you were only teasing her. You didn’t expect her to understand that this wasn’t something you would ever joke about.

Fortunately, she must have decided that you were telling the truth. “If he didn’t like being mean to everybody,” she ventured, “then why did he do it?” 

Another very good question, you thought. She was as clever and intuitive as Anakin had been. “I think part of him thought that he was doing the right thing by forcing people to get along,” you said. “And another part of him thought that there was nothing else he _could_ do except for listen to the Emperor. He’d been hurt; hurt very badly— that’s why some people didn’t think he was really a person.”

“The other children say he wore a mask. One of them drew a picture of it in the dirt with a stick, and it looked weird.” She paused, apparently recalling the drawing. “Scary, too. Like the rhymes.”

“He did wear a mask— he couldn’t breathe without it because of the way he’d been hurt. He lived in a special room when I met him, though, and he didn’t need to wear it there.” It was a genuine effort not to get lost in thoughts of Anakin’s face, because you still missed looking at him. Irrespective of his stark pallor or his scars, by the time you had to say goodbye to him, he was the most beautiful person you’d ever laid eyes on.

“How did you meet him? Was he mean to _you?”_

“I took care of him for a while before he died. And no,” you said emphatically, “he was never, _ever_ mean to me.”

“Did you like him, then? Were you friends?” You appreciated how readily she was already accepting your connection to the person who’d once been Darth Vader. You hoped that she could accept her own ties to him, too. Again, this was a conversation you’d have loved to wait a few more years to have; hoped that you were speaking carefully and gently enough right now that she wouldn’t be frightened or angry to discover the truth of where she’d come from.

“I suppose you could say we were friends— I was nervous about being near him at first, until I got to know him better. Once I did, though, he didn’t seem so scary anymore. We used to sit and talk for hours; that’s how I know he was sorry for the things he did.”

“Was my dad friends with him too? Wasn’t he worried you’d get hurt?”

You almost laughed. Anakin had, in fact, often been worried you’d get hurt. “There’s something I think I should show you,” you said, in lieu of answering her directly. “I was going to wait until you were a bit bigger, but you’re a smart girl, and I think you’re ready, now. Would you like to see?”

She nodded. Although clearly a bit confused, she was also distinctly curious. “Is it something from my dad?” she asked. 

“Yes. It’s something that used to belong to him.” You got up from your chair at that point, and walked across the room to your chest. It was just a wooden box; it was always tucked into the far corner of the room, and for the most part it stayed locked up. You retrieved its key from a high shelf set up near it, and popped it open. It had been a long time since you’d felt the need to peer inside. You smiled when you did, because you couldn’t help it: There were a few items from your own childhood stored there, along with other things you’d collected over the course of your career as a healer. 

Most significantly, perhaps, it contained Anakin’s mask— the one he’d worn for years; the one that Luke, in an act of ultimate kindness, had allowed you to keep for yourself. You’d always been happy to have it, but never quite so much as you were right now. It had been well-protected from both dust and the elements where you kept it, and that meant it was as shiny and sleek as it had been after you’d first repaired it. (It had been broken when you had met Anakin; you’d fixed it for him prior to understanding just how much he loathed to wear it.)

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” you said in the helmet’s direction as you picked it up, because you were just now realizing precisely how long it had been since you last took it out to look at it. Your daughter had been only a baby. When you turned back toward her to step up to the table with it, her eyes widened and she seemed to stiffen up in her seat. “Don’t be frightened,” you assured her. “It can’t hurt you.”

“You said you were getting something that belonged to my _dad,”_ she said somewhat nervously, as you placed it between the two of you on the table.

“This did belong to your dad, sweetheart. Remember how I told you that ‘Darth Vader’ was only a name?”

“...Yes.”

“Well, his _real_ name was Anakin Skywalker.” You touched the mask gently and added, “He wasn’t the person everybody thought he was— and I loved him very, _very_ much.” 

Wide-eyed, your little girl looked between the mask and your face. After a few drawn-out moments of silence, she stared up at you and asked as if to clarify, “My _dad_ was _Darth Vader?_ The man in the scary rhymes?”

“That’s right,” you confirmed. “By the time I met him, though, that name didn’t suit him anymore.” You smiled again before adding, “To me, he was just ‘Anakin’.” 

You could still remember the night he’d given you permission to call him by his real name. You hadn’t known how you ought to address him before then; it had been an immense relief to find out. You remembered liking it; appreciating even more the opportunity to use it. He’d said it was a poor fit for him, but you certainly hadn’t thought so. It was a handsome name; a name that sounded as though it belonged to someone who was brave, and wise.

Anakin, of course, had possessed both bravery and wisdom in spades.

Your little girl pursed her lips, and stared. She lifted a hand as though she were going to touch it, but pulled back prior to actually making contact with it. “You can touch it,” you said. “Like I told you— it can’t hurt you.” It had certainly hurt Anakin, for the time he’d had to wear it... but, it had also kept him alive. For all the cruelty inherent in the construction of his suit as a whole, it had preserved him long enough to know Luke, and long enough to connect with you, too. Your daughter wouldn’t be sitting here right now if it hadn’t been for the device resting upon the table before her.

She tried again; reached out with both hands this time, and placed one of them on either side of it.

“It’s heavy,” she said, picking it up as carefully as you’d ever seen her do anything. Tentatively, she placed it in her own lap; ran a hand over its contours as she examined it. It made her look so small, you thought; smaller than she’d looked to you for a long time.

“He wore it for more than twenty years,” you told her.

“What happened to him? What made him need it?”

“He was burned— everywhere; all over his body.”

Once she seemed to have taken that in, her next query was, “Why did you keep it?” 

You thought carefully about that before answering, “To remember him by, partly... although I don’t think I could ever have forgotten him.” You became aware of yourself taking on a far-away expression as you continued, “Mostly, I suppose kept it so that if anyone ever asked, I could tell them that your father was a good man— a man worth knowing; worth loving. Someone who was trustworthy, and kind. He might have made a lot of mistakes, but his mistakes weren’t who he was.” You refocused your vision upon your little one; finished, “That’s what his mask means to me— that’s why I still have it.”

She continued to stare down at it. “So, if he was actually nice, then that means I can tell—”

 _”No,”_ you said definitively, before she could even finish that particular thought. “No, you can’t tell anyone— not yet, anyhow.” It wasn’t safe; it hadn’t been long enough since Anakin’s death to be going around trying to convince people who’d only known him as a murderous dictator of his true nature. Too many people still remembered him, and those memories were far too fresh. Your daughter, anyway, was too young to bear the burden of justifying her father’s actions. You hated the thought of her being harmed in any way for her origin; until she could defend herself, the only safe option was to keep it hidden. 

“If _you_ forgave him,” she argued, “then maybe everybody else can, too.” She was smart enough that it sometimes escaped you just how naive she still was. Her notion was sweet, but unrealistic: You knew better than to let your little girl go about vindicating Darth Vader, no matter how correct she might have been to do so.

“Not yet,” you reiterated. “Maybe someday— but not today. When you’ve grown up, though, that mask you’re holding will be yours... and maybe, by then, there will be people who are ready to hear the truth of the story behind it.” You shook your head, not without a strong note of sadness. “For now, I just don’t think people are ready to know what it really means.” She looked disappointed at that, and so you added a bit more optimistically, “Not everyone is as understanding as you are, unfortunately.”

She looked to consider for a moment. “Does anyone else know? Anyone besides us?”

“Only your brother,” you replied, referencing Luke. She had only met him a handful of times; however, she often witnessed the two of you exchanging transmissions. She liked him; seemed to admire him. Part of you was beginning to think that a stint under his instruction sometime later on might not be a terrible idea for her. You weren’t about to send her off to be trained at this age, but in the future— if she still felt driven toward spreading the truth of who her father was— it would be helpful for her to be able manage her own safety.

You were grateful to her for being so forgiving; so accepting... but, you also knew that sort of outlook was oftentimes all too uncommon. Even Anakin’s other daughter was unable to grant him the amnesty you thought he deserved. That was her business, of course, but it made you sad to know that one of Anakin’s own children couldn’t seem to see through the facade of his behaviour under the Emperor’s unrelenting manipulation: ‘Darth Vader’, more than anything, had been mercilessly abused. You deeply admired the courage he’d displayed in ridding the galaxy of the man who’d tricked him into killing his own wife, and turned him into a hateful instrument of destruction.

“If he were here,” she said, picking up the helmet from her lap and placing it back up onto the table, “I’d tell him that it’s okay. That _I_ forgive him, whether anyone else does or not.”

You smiled warmly; felt pride start to rise up inside of you. Of course she would: She was Anakin’s. One thing you’d always loved about being at his side was the unrivalled level of mutual understanding the two of you had seemed to share. No matter what either one of you ever said or did, it was always there— as constant as the time you had always wished wouldn’t pass by so quickly when you’d simply been enjoying his company.

Just as your understanding of one another had never been disrupted, however, time did still have to pass. The child sitting in front of you was proof of that; so was the existence of the helmet without its original owner, and the fact that he was no longer here to draw you into his dreams or receive the affection you’d always loved to bestow upon him.

“I’ve always told you that you take after him, haven’t I?” you prompted, to which she smiled at you and nodded. It was a relief to see her smile, after the conversation you’d just had. “Well,” you said, “I meant it then, and I still mean it now. Everything wonderful about him that I wish everybody else could see is part of you, too. I see it all the time.”

She’d slid off of her chair by now, and walked up to you for a hug— like her father, she was affectionate. As you put your arms around her and leaned down to kiss the very top of her head, she asked you with unflinching innocence, “Do you miss him?”

Of course you missed him; you missed him every day. You didn’t want your daughter to feel sorry for you, though, and so you told her instead, “I don’t have to,” which was also true. “Every time I start to feel like I do, I look at you and I know he isn’t really gone. Do you know how grateful I was to him when I found out he’d left me with you?”

She laughed at that, simply because she knew that you knew she already did know: You told her frequently. 

Just at that moment, there was a knock at the door; it was followed by the sound of a different child’s voice calling out, _”Shmi!_ Shmi, can you come down to the village? We’re short a player for our game!”

“Can I?” she asked, pulling away from you. 

Briefly, you considered her request. “Will you remember what I said about waiting? Even if someone sings one of those silly rhymes again?”

“I’ll remember... and I’ll ignore the rhymes, too. I promise.” 

Now that she knew the truth, at least they wouldn’t scare her. “Alright, then— go on ahead, but be back before it gets too dark outside.”

“Okay!” she agreed, running off excitedly to play whatever game it was that her friends couldn’t finish without her. You stood in front of the table as she opened and shut the door, making sure you were positioned in such a way that your body would conceal the mask from anyone who might have ventured to peer inside. Once she was gone, you turned around and picked it up in your hands again; appreciated the weight of it, both literal and figurative.

“Thank you,” you said, looking not at the mask itself, but upwards instead; just the way you always used to when Anakin would speak to you with his mind out in the woods (or, for that matter, in the shower).

As you locked it back up in the place you kept it and walked over to your little stove to check on the progress of that evening’s meal, you could have sworn you heard a very familiar voice in the back of your head tell you, _Think nothing of it._

Tears welled up in your eyes and obscured the roughly-chopped vegetables bubbling about in your broth, but you smiled happily anyway. Anakin Skywalker had, in fact, been a good man— he’d been a brave warrior, a loving father, and an ideal companion for as long as you had known him. More than all of that, he’d been honest; had kept every promise he’d ever made to you, including the one that you regarded as having the most significance:

Between Shmi and Luke, not to mention Anakin’s own subtle-yet-crucial presence in your life and your home, you knew with absolute certainty that you would never, _ever_ be alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, Reader names the kid Shmi. Haughty and presumptive of me? Probably, but I hate naming/crafting original characters with a fiery passion (hence my endless love of writing in second-person), and I think it suits her, particularly given the nature of Reader’s relationship with Anakin... not to mention how she happens to have come into the world. 🤷
> 
> I decided to write this sooner rather than later, because typically if I spend too much time ‘away’ from a certain story-world, I end up too far out of the correct mindset to come back to it convincingly at will. I always miss stories as soon as I’m finished them, though (whether I’ve read them or just written them). :(  
> .


End file.
